Magic vs Hearthstone

Magic: The Gathering,
the tabletop game about powerful plane-hopping wizards, has seen a spike in
popularity with the release of its new digital analogue, MTG Arena. For years,
people have been discovering Magic at
their local game stores and through their D&D groups. Now more than ever
before, players are coming to Magic
from other digital games, including other collectible card games such as
Hearthstone.

If you’ve come to Magic
from Hearthstone, you’ll notice many similarities between the two games. In
both games, you’ll pay mana to cast spells, and you can only use as much mana
as you have access to for the turn. You’ll summon creature (or minion) cards
and attack with them to reduce your opponent’s life total and win the game.

But there are also some key differences between Magic and Hearthstone. Unlike Magic, Hearthstone was designed to be
digital, and there are several game mechanics and effects in the latter game
that take advantage of the digital platform. Consequently, you’re likely to see
more “random” effects in Hearthstone, such as generating a random minion or
dealing damage to a random creature – these effects are much harder to
replicate with paper cards, so they’re less common in Magic in general. Magic
also has 26 years of history behind it – there are more cards and more rules,
so the learning curve is steeper.

But not to worry – we’re here to provide an on-ramp from
Hearthstone to Magic. In this
article, we’ll break down the major differences between the two games and
provide tips for Hearthstone players looking to make the transition from
Legendary Hero to Mythic Champion.

Mana

In Magic, mana is
never a given. You only have as much mana as you have mana-generating cards in
play, and if you want access to those cards, you’ll have to draw them.

The first major difference between Magic and Hearthstone is that the latter has a guaranteed system of
mana. In a game of Hearthstone, your mana pool will increase by one each turn until
you have a total of ten mana. The only way to generate additional mana is to
use The Coin or another mana-producing spell.

The most common mana-generating cards in Magic are land cards. You may play one
land card on each of your turns, if you have one to play, and each land card
(typically) generates one mana. Additionally, there are some creatures,
artifacts, and other spells that also generate mana, and they’re good to have
if you have expensive spells to cast.

As much as Magic
players try to reduce variance, the number of lands a player draws will often
decide a game. Draw too few lands and you won’t be able to cast critical
spells; draw too many and you won’t have much to do on your turn. This leads to
more “dead draws” in Magic and you’re
used to seeing in Hearthstone, so you’ll want to construct your deck carefully
to ensure you have the right balance of lands and spells.

On average, a 60-card Magic
deck will have about 24 lands. If you’re playing an aggressive deck where your
spells cost three or four mana at most, you can get away with playing fewer
lands. If you’re playing a control deck that aims to play multiple spells per
turn later in the game, you’ll need 26 or 27 lands.

Magic’s mana
system also presents an additional challenge: there are five different colors
of mana, and most spells require mana of a certain color or colors. It isn’t
always enough to have the right number
of lands – you’ll need the right type of
land to cast your spells, too.

As you play MTG Arena, you’ll see players using non-basic
lands that generate different colors of mana. These lands provide added
flexibility, especially in decks with heavier colored mana requirements. Many
of these lands are printed at higher rarities, so save those wildcards if
you’re looking to add them to your collection.

Classes and Hero Powers

The five colors of Magic
each have their own identities:

White builds armies and protects creatures Blue draws cards and seeks to control the board Black destroys creatures and raises the dead Red gets aggressive and deals direct damage Green’s creatures are the biggest of all

However, unlike Hearthstone cards, Magic cards aren’t divided into classes, so any card is fair game
for the intrepid deck-builder. If you want to put one red card in your blue and
black deck, that’s fine – if you have the mana to cast it, of course.

MTG Arena also doesn’t have anything like Hearthstone’s hero power system. Many Magic cards allow you to pay mana for repeatable effects, but you won’t consistently have access to those cards in every game. Hero powers are reliable enough that you can build your deck around them, and they help give your deck more consistency.[ You can always use your hero power on your turn if you have nothing better to do, or if you want to execute a combo; Magic has no equivalent, so be prepared for less consistent gameplay.

Creature Combat

Inevitably, when people learn how to play Magic, they think that attacking with
creatures works like it does in Hearthstone. “I’m going to attack your 2/2 with
my 3/3,” they’ll say with confidence.

However, creature combat works a bit differently in Magic, and it can be hard for players to
understand at first. Here’s the best way we can describe it: Creatures attack
the defending player, and that player chooses whether to block with their own
creatures or take damage. So, any time you attack, you should think about how
your opponent could potentially block.

There are plenty of effects in Magic that destroy or damage creatures, but you need to make room
for them in your deck, and you need
to draw them at the right time. As a result, relatively small creatures with
valuable abilities will typically stay on the battlefield longer in a game of Magic than they would in a game of
Hearthstone. We hope this opens up new possibilities to you and allows you to
reconsider creatures you wouldn’t play otherwise.

Actions on Opponents’
Turns

Finally, we’ve come to one of the most challenging aspects
of Magic to master: taking actions on
your opponents’ turns. In Hearthstone, players can only cast spells on their
own turns, so player interaction is rather limited. Players can use Secrets to
set traps for each other, but these spells won’t achieve their desired effect
if a wary player maneuvers around them.

In Magic, players
can take a handful of actions on opponents’ turns, such as:

Casting Instant spells

Casting creatures that have the ability Flash

Activating abilities of creatures, lands, and
other permanents

Magic players have
an opportunity to respond whenever an opponent casts a spell, so if you’re
looking to combo off, do so with the awareness that your opponent can respond
with a counterspell or creature removal. Many combo decks in Magic will even run counterspells of
their own in order to respond to their opponent’s responses. You may also want
to consider spells that let you look at your opponent’s hand and choose a card
for them to discard, just to make sure the coast is clear.

Fending off instant-speed interaction can be challenging,
but things aren’t always easy from your opponent’s perspective, either.
Learning when it’s most ideal to cast an Instant is one of the hardest skills
to master in Magic, and it’s often
situational. Should you cast a removal spell on your opponent’s turn so you can
use your mana for other things on your own turn? Or should you cast your
removal on your turn, while your opponent has limited mana available to
potentially foil your plan? Players debate these situations all the time, and they
enjoy the challenge of finding the right “line” in a game.

Conclusion

There’s plenty of luck involved in winning a game of Magic, but the game also requires skill
and dedication to learning its systems. We hope this article has given you a
better understanding of those systems, and that we’ve made the game even more
enjoyable for you.

If you’re looking to learn more about Magic, there are plenty of resources here on the Card Kingdom Blog.
And if you’d like to watch some live MTG Arena gameplay, be sure to join us on Twitch on Wednesday and Thursday
afternoons!